-
Jul 12, 2006 5:35 pm US/Pacific
-
Digg |
Facebook |
E-mail
|
Print
Libraries for Africa
Jefferson Award Winner: Chris Bradshaw
by Kate Kelly
(CBS 5)
At a Portola Valley school library, an industrious group of sixth graders is packing box after box with books. Picture books, board books, all kinds of books.. are all headed to Africa, for children whose educational experience is worlds apart.
Student Emily Moreton says, "I've learned that a lot of kids in Africa don't have a lot of books to read."
Classmate Josh Totte adds, "The places they learn -- they don't all have buildings. Sometimes they just gather around a tree in the sunlight."
The idea of collecting books and sending them to children in Africa is Chris Bradshaw's. Two years ago, she and her family took a vacation to Africa. That's when the African Library Project was born. They were on a horsepacking trip in Lesotho when inspiration struck. "I asked them if they had ever thought about having a library and they said, 'we've always wanted a library, but we didn't know how to make it happen,'" she explains.
At first, Chris sent books from own collection. Then she began holding book drives. Now her all-volunteer network partners with schools and organizations that handle the collecting and shipping.
School librarian Carolyn Billheimer says this is the second year Corte Madera Elementary in Portola Valley has packed books. "Last year we collected one thousand books and sent them to Chimoza Community School, an AIDS orphanage in the Zambia," she says.
In Africa, Peace Corps volunteers help identify communities interested in sustaining a library, then work with local officials to set them up with books shipped from the U.S.
"They have to provide a clean dry space for books, book shelves, and they have to provide staffing," Chris says.
The project is careful to send books that will be relevant to children Africa. They don't send books about American holidays, or anything religious.
So far, the African Library Project has completed work on 29 libraries. Twenty more are under development. Twenty thousand books have been donated by fourteen American schools. And countless lessons are learned each day on both sides.
"I didn't know Africa didn't have as much money as the United States and didn't have enough books to read," says student Siobhan Rickert.
"There are many, many places that are poor, but Africa is getting poorer," says Chris. "It's poorer now than it was 25 years ago and it's the only place in the world that is like that."
She believes books provide the tools for change. Her dream is to one day provide books written in native African languages... a chapter she'll write when there's more money.
"I got sick of feeling overwhelmed," she says. "I wanted to dig in and do it and this was something I could do and I know it's making a huge difference."
So for inspiring learning in children from Los Gatos to Lesotho, this week's Jefferson Award in the Bay Area goes to Chris Bradshaw.
(© MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)